By Gary Martin :
May 22, 2012
: Updated: May 22, 2012 10:36pm

WASHINGTON — A national environmental group upped the ante Tuesday and threw more money behind an effort to stop former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the Democratic primary for a San Antonio congressional district.

“They may need another half-million,” Rodriguez said. “I think we can win it outright.”

An LCV spokesman said that 30-second TV spots criticizing Rodriguez began airing Tuesday on San Antonio network broadcast stations and will continue until the day before the May 29 primary.

LCV also spent $95,296 on direct-mail pieces criticizing the former congressman for votes on energy, particularly his vote against a conservation bill backed by President Barack Obama to tighten clean energy standards.

“On the defining clean energy vote of his career, Ciro Rodriguez cast his lot with the tea party radicals, turning his back on President Obama's plan to build an American clean energy economy,” said Navin Nayak, LCV senior vice president for campaigns.

But Rodriguez defended his 2009 vote against the so-called Cap and Trade Bill, which passed 219-212, as the correct vote for constituents in the expansive 23rd Congressional District, which sweeps from San Antonio to El Paso.

About 50 Democrats voted against the bill, despite Obama's support, citing an increase in energy taxes on American consumers.

Rodriguez said CPS Energy, San Antonio's largest utility, opposed the bill. And the cost to Texas families, if the bill had become law, would have been about $1,300 a year.

“It was definitely the right vote,” Rodriguez said.

The LCV has endorsed state Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, in the three-way Democratic primary for the 23rd Congressional District nomination.

Patent lawyer John Bustamante of San Antonio also is running for the Democratic nod.

The Gallego campaign welcomed LCV's endorsement, and its focus on the Rodriguez voting record on policy issues. The Gallego campaign also is attacking Rodriguez's policy positions in direct mail advertising.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco, R-San Antonio, who is running unopposed for the Republican nomination.

The Rodriguez campaign manager, D'Mitri Kosub, said the environmental group's characterizations of Rodriguez as a tea party supporter is “ludicrous.”

But the LCV's expenditures in the race could tip the balance in favor of Gallego.

Last month, the LCV spent $230,000 in television ads targeting Rep. Tim Holden, currently the longest serving Pennsylvania Democrat in the House, for his vote against the Cap and Trade Bill.

Holden was defeated by personal injury lawyer Matt Cartwright in a newly drawn congressional district that included Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.

But in addition to the special interest money, the Holden campaign said Cartwright also was the helped in his election by new political lines following redistricting.

Kosub also noted that Holden was a “Blue Dog,” or moderate Democrat who had voted against the Affordable Health Care Act supported by Obama.